Hello and welcome to another installment of Wednesday writing tips. On Wednesday I put up writing advice pertaining to various arenas of writing given by authors based on their own experience. I started this section as Writerstipswednesday but now think Wednesday writing tips is more suitable, so have renamed it. Many thanks to Devika for her help in selecting the hashtag 🙂 If you share this, please use #Wednesdaywritingtips to connect the posts.

Today I have authors talking about writing craft, using ideas, adding pace to your writing and some plotting advice from yours truly.

Tess Woods, Harper Collins author has this valuable advice about giving your ideas more meaning in your story. She says:

“The best advice I have received with my own writing was to make sure that everything you write about is relevant to the story. If you describe a pet bird, then you better make sure that bird then features somehow in the plot or there was no point mentioning it. This cuts out a lot of excessive descriptions and keeps the pace nice and fast to keep readers engaged.”

Have you had trouble keeping track of your ideas while you try to put them in the plot? Our memory is most treacherous and the things you are sure you will remember will slip out of your grasp.

Sharon Boothroyd of Kishboo e-mag has this to share regarding keeping ideas and reworking them.

“Keep an ideas book, so these ideas can develop into a story. Jot a list of titles, and write a story for the title. Always re-draft rejected stories and think of another place to send them. Start a story with a line of dialogue -a question is a good opening. Describe all the senses in fiction – smell, taste, hearing, touch and sight. Always finish a piece of work. Keep writing!”

Devika Fernando, romance and fantasy author, relates how she adds pace to her writing:

“I find it very useful to write each chapter of my book in a separate Word document in the beginning. It makes it easier to search for something I want to clarify or rewrite during my rounds of revising editing. It also helps me to make sure that I have a good first line that grabs the reader’s attention, and an equally great last line that makes the reader want to find out what happens next. Another advantage is that I feel motivated to write the whole chapter in one go, so I can ‘close’ the document and start afresh on another chapter.”

Those who like to take pen to paper before fingers on the keyboard will resonate with Deep Downer‘s experience. This advertising professional-turned-author has this knack of getting editing done efficiently. His take:

“Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my fountain pen (a Mont Blanc; yeah I’m a showoff) and a notebook to write the first draft. I feel I write faster that way, and the flow of thought is expedited too.
What it also does is, give me an additional avenue for editing, while I’m typing it on the laptop. That’s my first edit. After I finish typing, I let it rest for a couple of weeks, besides giving my eyes a change of scenery. After the cooling-off period, I open it again, afresh, and start editing the heck out of it. It usually then takes three rounds of editing – with at least a week between each of them – before I send it to the betas and/or start with proofing.”

Here’s my input for today: “While plotting your story, do not go into the nitty gritty details. It will take the surprise element out of your writing. If you can’t think of what should happen after X, leave some space and go on to the event Z. Y will come when you get down to writing it. Take my word for it. Who knows you may find Y split into Ya, Yb and so on and you might get some nice subplots to add twists to your tale. So don’t plot too much. Trust the process.”

That’s all for today. Stay tuned for more in writing by following #Wednesdaywritingtips

If you are a published or aspiring author, you are welcome to participate in Wednesday writing tips by sending in your writing tips and sharing those of others. Send in your writing tip for Wednesday writing tips by using contact form of this blog. Please add your website/blog link and a one line bio.

Writing is an art which requires extensive knowledge of the craft and even more amount of hard work. With pressures of day job – if you have one – and daily routine, it’s easy to get immersed in ‘life’ and feel disenchanted with writing. To keep you penning those words, whether you are a beginner or an already published author, here are some gems of advice from those who have been through it.

“Use a timer to write everyday and exercise your writing muscles.” This rejuvenating tip is from Nanowrimo winner Morton Gray.

Maya Tyler whose has debuted in the paranormal genre with Dream Hunter has an alert for you. “First you write, then you sell? No, you need to establish an author platform and learn how to manage social media long before you publish your first book.”

Here are my own two cents. “While researching keep your focus on the key words and the vision you have for your story. It’s all too easy to get drawn to interesting facts and try to weave them into your book. But that’s a pothole to avoid. Let research serve your book, not the other way around.”
This was an important lesson learned after wasting two hours to establish one single fact in the historical romance I’m currently editing. *sigh* I should write fantasy.

So have you found these useful? Do you agree or disagree? Share what works or doesn’t work for you in writing in the comments below.

Here it is, folks, a new instalment of #writerstipwednesday. Every Wednesday I’m hosting authors to share their valuable experience in form of a writing tip. It can be related to any phase of writing, plotting, grammar, editing, publishing or marketing – well, we all know marketing is part of writing now, so need to include that too.

So here we are, with some very inspiring and heartfelt quotes. The first tip is from Ruchira Khanna. Author of fiction work, Choices:a novel, Ruchira thinks of herself as just another soul trying to make a difference in this lifetime via her work and actions. “Follow your heart” she says, “the above helps a writer write what actually ails her and eventually through her words can help heal thyself while providing a big picture to the reader.”

Next up is Ashwini, a teacher, a passionate writer, avid reader and a person who believes in “Keep Smiling theory ” for a healthy successful life. “Hi all,Writing is an art. An Art which comes out heart of the person who is passionate about writing, learning new things and discovering new things. ABC(Any Body Can ) be a writer if he/she has willingness and determination to become .It’s not necessary that you will become a successful author like others but you can achieve it by constant effort.You write, participate in short stories contest if you win the contest it’s a good thing but if you loose don’t loose hope. Keep on Writing until you succeed as a accomplished writer. Best way to keep on writing is blogging. Blogs are best way connect with current generation writers and yester years writers and follow them so that you can improve upon writing skills. Never stop writing as writing gives rise to more thoughts, imagination and other things. So keeping on WRITING WRITING and WRITING. Don’t bother of what the world says about you!”

Harper Impulse author, Wendy Lou Jones has a unique take of her own on improving writing craft. “For writing tips, I’d say you don’t have to read, although it helps, but watching TV and films is good too as you can watch and think that was good. Why was that good? What did the writer do to make me like that? Could I use that trick in my writing? The reverse also helps. That was rubbish. Why? What did the writer do/not do? I need to avoid that. I find it helps when you are having trouble with your writing to read or watch others’. Hope that helps. :-)”

My input today is based on what I learnt from struggling with a writing block last week. “When you get stuck, go back and start editing your earlier chapters. As you fix them, light begins to shine on what the next segment of your work should be about. You get clues that you left behind which can lead to surprises in the next section.”

Did you found something useful in there? If you got inspired, do let me know in the comments. All the authors would love to hear from you.

Want to feature YOUR writing tip on #writerstipwednesday? Send me your one line bio, link and your suggestion through the Contact me page of this site.

Hi folks! Today is the first instalment of the writing advice jewels that authors are going to pour out of their experience bags onto this blog.

Devika Fernando, author of contemporary and paranormal romance novels gives this valuable tip:
“Make the 1st sentence of each chapter special. it has to make the reader want to rush ahead to know what will happen in the chapter, just like a book’s very first sentences should always be attention-grabbers.”

A voracious reader and a passionate writer, Ruchi Singh aims to create an entertaining, interesting experience for the reader through her stories. She says, “Master the grammer/ punctuation rules and use them right from the first draft, it will save time in the end, with less errors while proof-reading.”

Writing tip #3 is from Maya Tyler who has recently published her debut paranormal romance novella Dream Hunter. “Just like in singing, make a joyful noise! Drafts don’t have to be perfect – just written!”

Sheritha Singh, South African writer who lives on the Kwa-Zulu Natal North Coast, shares, “Write in a voice you’re comfortable with. If you’re having trouble writing a scene then write that particular scene in first POV. It helps layer the scene with emotion and see it through the character’s eyes. I’ve done that many times. Although most of my published work is written in first POV, I’ve had work published in third POV as well. Writing in first POV helps get inside the character’s head as well.”

Last but not least, here’s my writing tip:
“Don’t hold back on dialogue. Conversations are the best way to get into your character’s head. What they say, whether it is in concordance with what they think or how they act, will lead us directly into their conflict and thus make us turn the page.”

Did you find these suggestions useful? Do you have something to contribute? Looking forward to hearing from you.

Want to feature your writing tip on #writerstipwednesday? Send me your one line bio, link and your suggestion through the Contact me page of this site.

I have been meaning to start a writerstipwednesday section on this blog for a long time. Since the first thing to be done in the New Year should be taking care of old matters, so I’m taking the plunge on this today.

writerstipwednesday is for writers. And especially for aspiring authors. In true sense, an author is always aspiring as long as they are writing but I use the term to mean as yet unpublished writers. But which ever phase of writing you fall in, you must have gleaned some experiences so this section is to put forward the lessons from those mistakes so others may profit from them.

All you have to do is message/email me your writing tip. It can be about any stage in the writing process, grammar, writing craft, writing art, publishing, marketing, reader engagement….anything related to writing. It need not be in a highly polished or formal state though of course it should be understandable. It can be of any length upto 350 words. I’ll post your tip along with your one important link – your site link or book link or anything you like.

So get ready and sharpen your pencils – or dust of your keyboards – as the case maybe. Pour out the gems the world is waiting to hear from you. Especially that writer who’s stuck staring at the blank screen. Think, what could help that writer do better? One tip per writer per Wednesday. That’s the only rule. It means, don’t bombard me with writing advice. Just give me one very helpful, sparkling, scintillating, earth shaking insight into writing. That will be the sword that magically tears up the giant evil monster to bits. We are all struggling with various monsters during writing, so the wordy swords from you will be very welcome.

You can comment in the box at the ‘About me’ page on this blog to contribute to writerstipwednesday. Thank you. Wish you a rocking year ahead. Wish this year brings us the discovery of a pizza which actually reduces your weight when you eat it. And similar varieties of chocolate, aloo tikki….you get my drift 🙂

Happy New year. Go grab your dreams and help others in theirs.

Remember to use #writerstipwednesday in all Twitter mentions about this.